Newspapers compared with the brief mention of sermons and the doings of the clergy, I would recall a couple of verses from the New Testament, which are often cited for another lesson they teach. Christ was criticized by the pharisees and scribes for receiving and eating with publicans and sinners, and he spake unto them in this parable:

“What man of you having a hundred sheep, and having lost one of them doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness and go after that which is lost until he find it? And when he hath found it he layeth it on his shoulders rejoicing. And when he cometh home he calleth together his friends and his neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you that even so there shall be joy in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over the ninety and nine righteous persons which need no repentance." The point of this, as likewise of the parable of the woman and the ten pieces of silver, lies in the application. It is always the thing which is lost, or about which there is doubt, chance, or surprise, that attracts the attention of men as of angels. We take a very mild interest in the millions that travel safely by land and sea, but let a train run over an embankment, or a ship founder in mid-ocean, and the eyes of the world devour with startled eagerness the details of the horror. Why? Because it creates a sensation and not because to the great world of readers the wreck of a train or the loss of a ship makes much more difference than the fall of a sparrow, or the sinking of a pebble.

But I suppose the greatest difference of opinion between the publishers of Newspapers and the critics exists over the right of Newspapers to ransack the earth, to drag family-skeletons from their closets, to invade the privacy of homes, and push the inquisition of the interview into the affairs of individuals in the unceasing search for sensation. It may be difficult to define where the rights of the public to information, and of the individual to privacy begin and end, but it is understood and acted upon in every Newspaper office in this country every day in the week, and every hour of the day. And with all respect to the criticism, mostly inspired by the agonies of galled jades, I think the wonder is not that the right is abused, but that it is so seldom abused. Of course, we can all recall instances where gross injustice has been done by the Paul Pryism of the Press, but the rights of the public have to be governed by the broad principles of universal good and not by the hardships, or even the heart breaks of particular cases. Restrict the right of the Newspaper to follow virtue into its santuary and you cannot commission it to track crime into its secret haunts. Forbid the reporter to enter the drawing-room of the rich, the office of the lawyer, or the study of the learned in pursuit of information, aye, even of gossip, and you cannot authorize him to search the tenements of the poor, or the back alleys of vice for the relief of the distressed, or the detection of guilt. Liberty of inquiry and investigation is necessary to the full exercise of the highest office of the Newspaper-the exposure of all manner of public rascality and rapacity. It is this that makes it a terror to bad and designing men who systematically foster the idea, derived from a legal axiom, that it is better that ninety and nine knaves should escape

exposure than that the private feelings of one honest citizen should be disturbed by seeing his name in print.

I admit that the daily Newspaper is in some respects a vast clearinghouse of worthless gossip, but so long as this gossip is free from scurrility and free from malice, little if any harm is done. All history that is not taken up with the rise and fall of dynasties in blood, intrigue, and infamy, or with the dry narration of human progress, is gossip; and it is through this gossip that we derive our truest notions of the manners, lives, and characters of our ancestors.

In the State of Illinois the rights of Newspapers are defined and limited by a law which, if justly administered in the courts, would be ample protection to them and every citizen. Broadly, their right is to tell the truth under all circumstances, where the community is to be served, avoiding malice, falsehood, and gratuitous scandals.

As for the duties of Newspapers I believe they are coextensive with their rights. They should be conducted as quasi-public institutions, with temperance, boldness, and truth, for their guiding principles. Any publisher who looks on his Newspaper as a private enterprise to be conducted merely as a sewer for the world's filthiest news and as a purveyor of corrupt, sordid, and hypocritical opinions-because it pays to conduct such a Newspaper—is a public enemy. And every citizen who as a subscriber or advertiser patronizes such a Newspaper is particeps criminis. Let there be no mistake about this. The publisher of such a Newspaper has the excuse that in a corrupted world filth and falsehood pay. If there were no market for his tainted and damaged goods he would reform. But to one accusation involving the motives or probity of a publisher, you have a thousand charging Newspapers with an absolute incapacity for telling the truth. The old saw that "All men are liars," has been revised to read "All Newspapers are liars." From ex-President Cleveland and the ex-Minister to St. James down to the lowest pimp that rails against the liberty of unlicensed printing, the alleged mendacity of the Press is a by-word. Now one of the first duties of the Newspaper is to TELL THE TRUTH. It is a duty enjoined by law and established by expediency. From the youngest reporter up to the editor-in-chief, all the members of the Newspaper staff are impressed with the necessity for accuracy of information and statement. You may smile your incredulity. But it is the truthful reporter that wins the confidence of his chief, and it is the accurate editor who comes to be relied on by the publisher and by the public. There is no place in the world where veracity commands a higher premium and mendacity is at a more general discount than in a Newspaper office. No man can get on in this business whose reports whether of a horse race or a transit of Venus takes liberties with the fractions of time or truth. To any one practically conversant with the difficulties of obtaining accurate accounts of the most common place event, the general truthfulness of the reports in the Newspaper excites admiration and not mistrust. Do you realize that no two men ever see the same thing from the same point of view? The base line of vision in no two men is precisely alike. No two men hear the same thing in the same way. No two stenographic reporters take down the same

thing with the same signs, and no two men transcribe their notes without variations. I do not believe that any two men in this hall heard my last sentence in identically the same words and tone in which it was uttered. I know, no man is able to write his own thoughts on paper as he thinks them, and the law libraries of the land are glutted with decisions of courts trying to construe documents to give effect to the real intentions of granters, lessors, testators, etc., etc., all set out with the expensive verbiage of the ablest lawyers in the world. And so I am amazed at the general truthfulness of hurried Newspaper writing, rather than distressed over its occasional misstatements. Of course, I do not pretend to defend or excuse the wilful misrepresentations of party organs, or of editorial controversialists. These must be charged up to the debasing tendency of politics and the general cussedness of human nature, which is the same in the editor of a country Newspaper, as in a John Milton, a Sam Johnson, or a Lord Macaulay. Briefly put the right of a Newspaper is to get and print all the news, and its duty is to please, instruct, and increase its readers.

THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF THE NEWSPAPER

PRESS.

BY JAMES H. RAYMOND.

"I HOLD EVERY MAN A DEBTOR TO HIS PROFESSION FROM 66 THE WHICH, AS MEN, OF COURSE THEY SEEK TO RECEIVE 66 COUNTENANCE AND PROFIT; SO OUGHT THEY OF DUTY TO

66

ENDEAVOR THEMSELVES BY WAY OF AMENDS TO BE A HELP

66 AND ORNAMENT THERETO."

BACON-MAXIMS OF THE LAW-PREFACE.

I

Newspapers seldom make apologies and never make decent ones. shall, without apology, follow their practice in saying just what I please, though I utterly disregard them as ensamples in two respects; first I write with an individual responsibility for what I say, and second, I shall endeavor to be true to my conscience and to the facts.

There is in this country a small and, in a small degree, an eminently respectable" Independent Newspaper Press," as to which some of the remarks to be made, concerning criticism of public men and measures, do not justly apply; but that Independent Press is so culpable in its sensational publication of crimes and casualties, and ́in its unmerciful dealings with personal characters and private reputations, as to make it not at all worth while to stop in the discussion, as it proceeds, to note such exceptions.

I am to deal with some of the rights and duties of the Newspaper Press which, so far as I need to note, is bound by a queue of unintelligent labor to the patronage strings of one or the other of the political parties.

Every branch of this subject should, in reviews and in public addresses, be treated only from the standpoint of the true interests of the public. The public has no concern with the question now being debated in caustic print, whether the Newspaper or the Periodical Press uses the better grammar and the better rhetoric, nor with the present struggles for place and patronage between the Newspaper, the periodical, the religious, the literary, the trade and the hybrid publications; nor has the public any interest in the questions of etiquette and professional courtesy between proprietors, edi

tors and reporters, if indeed the shadow of such a thing exists. Even the intense warfare now going on between editors to obtain office, or ratherfor such has been the complexion of the matter for the last few months of the present national administration-the villifying struggles of editors to prevent rival editors from obtaining office, has no engaging interest to the public, specially when these matters are compared with the tryanny, absolute, practically irresponsible, cruel and, in morals, criminal, now being exercised by the Newspaper Press upon three certain lines in which the nation, each state, each community and every individual is directly or indirectly and most interestedly concerned.

The Newspaper Press needs no adulation as to its mechanical achievements, its diffusion of knowledge, its expositions of the status of society and civilization, its educational influences upon the masses, or its checks upon designing men and pernicious measures. It sits upon a throne of imperial power, but as a rule, whenever an opportunity for gain from the baser portion of the populace is presented, it rises from the throne of its power and points a two-edged sword against the defenceless breast of any man or measure, with a remorseless energy and, as yet, an irresistible fury. And I think I am not overstating the case in saying that there is a solemn demand from the high chancery of Heaven, in behalf of the liberties of the people, that this sword shall be forever sheathed and that this throne shall be destroyed so far as this advertising usurper may exercise any tyranny over morals or measures, or men.

Nor am I overstating the case in saying that the preservation of the inalienable rights to life, to liberty and to the pursuit of happiness has come, in these latter days, to be, for the future, dependent upon an absolute destruction, either by statute law, or by public sentiment or by both, of this as yet unpunishable tyranny.

The three respects in which this tyranny is universally exercised, from the rising to the setting of the sun, and from the proprietor and managing editor to the police reporter, to which public attention should perhaps be specially directed, are in:

First. Its criticisms of proposed public measures, its criticisms of public officers and its attempted dictation of political appointments.

Second. Its sensational publication of crimes, misdemeanors and casualties, and

Third. Its utter indifference to personal character and to the value and sacredness of private reputations.

To these considerations let the discussion be confined.

That a dangerous, absolute and practically irresponsible tyranny, in these respects is now being exercised by the Newspaper Press-dangerous alike to personal peace and to the public weal-let him deny who has the temerity to do so. It is quite sufficient for proof to appeal to the common judgment that it has become quite wholesome advice, never reply, much less to antagonize, any statement in a Newspaper, even though written by the most evil-minded and malicious street reporter, unless you own, control or edit a paper having substantially the same circulation. When in the litany the priest says, "From all evil, sedition and privy conspiracy," good